The document discusses studying the Republic of Letters, an early modern community of scholars, as a historical example of a knowledge commons. It explores how the Republic of Letters institutionalized open science between 1500-1700 by establishing learned societies and journals to share knowledge openly. However, it also involved practices of privacy and secrecy. The Republic of Letters balanced open sharing of propositional knowledge with protecting useful knowledge via secrecy or exclusivity. Studying it can provide insights into how open scientific systems evolved and the interplay between openness and privacy in knowledge governance commons.

1. The Origins of Knowledge Commons:
Open Science in Historical Perspective
Michael Madison
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
http://madisonian.net/home
@profmadison
12-13 October 2018
Privacy as Knowledge Commons Governance Conference
Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Philadelphia, PA

2. The Republic of Letters and open
science as knowledge commons
Between 1500 and the mid-1700s, the foundations of modern scientific
research and practices of scholarly communication were developed and
institutionalized. Open science and modern understanding of the progress
of knowledge took root in scientific societies and scholarly journals,
organized and administered by communities of peer experts who built on
what both historians and contemporaries called the Republic of Letters.
Economic historians have characterized the Republic of Letters as an early
market of ideas, where natural philosophers shared their ideas openly and
publicly. That analysis overemphasizes publicness and openness and
understates the roles played by privacy, security, and confidentiality. The
Republic of Letters and the transition to modern scientific communications
were characterized by both the former – openness – and the latter –
privacy.
This chapter explores that proposition by revisiting the Republic of Letters
as a historical case of knowledge commons.
Workshop on Governing
Knowledge Commons:
http://knowledge-
commons.net
The KC Framework, applied,
implications, and questions
Privacy and secrecy
The institutional solution
Project scope
The problem (dilemmas)
Why study the Republic of
Letters

3. Why study the Republic of
Letters?
The modern baseline: open science.
Today, scientific research is viewed as a standard example of knowledge
commons governance: institutional sharing of knowledge and information
resources (across multiple scales, in nested and overlapping systems)
leading to social welfare gains of various sorts relative to governance via
systems of exclusive (legal) rights. This is “open science” (Merton, 1942)
and/or sharing and learning in communities of scientific practice (Lave and
Wenger, 1991; Brown and Duguid 1991; Kuhn, 1962).
Study change.
Scientific knowledge commons weren’t born that way; openness is not a
given or mandatory attribute of science, scientific knowledge, or scientific
progress. We study history to understand how institutions like these
evolve, and to understand pathways of change (De Moor et al., 2016).
Explore the other side.
We also study history in order to explore attributes of modern institutions
that are rendered opaque or hidden by contemporary narratives and
practices. If scientific practice and scientific knowledge are “open” in the
sense suggested by knowledge commons research, then that openness is
grounded in communit(ies), and one predicts that community openness
exists relative to practices of enclosure, limitation, and boundedness.
Workshop on Governing
Knowledge Commons:
http://knowledge-
commons.net
The KC Framework, applied,
implications, and questions
Privacy and secrecy
The institutional solution
Project scope
The problem (dilemmas)
Why study the Republic of
Letters

4. The rise of the Republic of Letters
in the early 16th century …
• European societies lacked conceptual and material systems for
accumulating and distributing technological innovation and scientific
knowledge … which turned out to be critical to the Industrial
Revolution and to economic growth in general.
• The epistemology of facts, progress, and secular knowledge grounded
in experience – (Francis) Baconian science (after the Novum Organum
of 1620) – was still in formation.
• Individual means and motivations for sharing knowledge were diverse
(at best) and limited (at worst).
• Institutions for authenticating, documenting, distributing, and
collecting scientific knowledge were scattered and splintered (at best –
consider medieval universities in England, Germany, France, and Italy)
or non-existent (printing and publishing, learned societies, expert/peer
review).
• Nb. antecedents of modern systems of exclusive rights in knowledge
date from the end of this era: Statute of Monopolies (1624), Statute of
Anne (1710).
Workshop on Governing
Knowledge Commons:
http://knowledge-
commons.net
The KC Framework, applied,
implications, and questions
Privacy and secrecy
The institutional solution
Project scope
The problem (dilemmas)
Why study the Republic of
Letters

5. The Republic of Letters as
knowledge commons
• A transnational, virtual community of correspondents
• Consisting of independent scholars, who referred to themselves as the
Respublica [Res Publica] Litteraria, publishing scientific results in letters
to one another, and books and pamphlets
• Per Mokyr (2012, 2017), it included “the educated elite, the intellectual
crème de la crème: scientists, physicians, philosophers,
mathematicians”
• Who subscribed to a common ideology (modern conditions and reason
as the method for understanding nature, v ancient learning; the
possibility of scientific and cultural progress; moral duties of openness
and publicity with respect to learning and knowledge; the value and
importance of useful knowledge)
• And organized themselves (in part) into “invisible colleges,” precursors
to learned societies and scientific journals (the Royal Society was
founded in 1660; Philosophical Transactions was founded in 1665)
[A/k/a in effect a “market for ideas”/”economy of prestige”]
• Continent-wide postal services originating first in Italy, Germany
(Francisco de Tasso) in the late 16th c.
• Nb. Gutenberg’s printing press (mid-15th c.)
• Contributed (how centrally???) to economic growth associated with
the Industrial Revolution and beyond
Workshop on Governing
Knowledge Commons:
http://knowledge-
commons.net
The KC Framework, applied,
implications, and questions
Privacy and secrecy
The institutional solution
Project scope
The problem (dilemmas)
Why study the Republic of
Letters

6. The Republic of Letters as
knowledge privacy commons
• A community practicing open science: A baseline commitment to
publicness of scientific knowledge.
• Individual private study and private (F2F) shared experience – libraries,
salons, universities, castles/courts – transmuted into text, at a distance;
distance (literal and metaphorical) contributing to objectivity.
• Originators compensated reputationally: in credit and in competition
for patronage and commissions.
• Results evaluated by fellow elite experts and positions awarded based
on merit.
• Exclusivity in knowledge arises in (sort of) modern form around the
same time: Statute of Monopolies (1624) (succeeding the practice of
letters patent), Statute of Anne (1710) (succeeding the practices of the
Stationers Company).
• Overlapping systems of open science (RoL) and emergent exclusive
rights in knowledge implies some fancy epistemological footwork
regarding what was/should be openly accessible v what was/should be
private or secret, and regarding was governed via exclusivity v what
was governed via sharing or commons:
• Propositional knowledge (knowledge of natural phenomena)
normally placed in the public (open) realm
• Prescriptive or useful knowledge (technology) could be protected
either by secrecy (by individual inventors, or by guilds) or by
exclusivity
Workshop on Governing
Knowledge Commons:
http://knowledge-
commons.net
The KC Framework, applied,
implications, and questions
Privacy and secrecy
The institutional solution
Project scope
The problem (dilemmas)
Why study the Republic of
Letters

7. The Knowledge Commons
Framework, Implications, and
Questions
The continuing question: In what respects [any?] did privacy/
confidentiality/ secrecy contribute to the evolution of open science as
embodied in RoL and after?
1. What’s the resource?
• Scientific knowledge, reputational capital, time/experience in private
research and study [multiple researchers working on overlapping
questions]
2. What are the dilemmas associated with the resource?
• Building a body of authoritative knowledge about the natural world;
distributing that knowledge; encouraging/supporting its use;
blending practices of private study [including private
correspondence] with collectivization of results
3. What are the communities and their governance strategies for
knowledge/privacy sharing?
• Networks of researchers linked by postal systems; normative
obligations to publicize results; publication/distribution is closely
linked to (i) formal institutions [existing universities, new crown-
sponsored academies and institutes; journals]; (ii) time/space for
private study both inside/outside those institutions; and (iii)
privatized benefits [patronage, consulting]
The KC Framework, applied;
implications, and questions
Workshop on Governing
Knowledge Commons:
http://knowledge-
commons.net
Privacy and secrecy
The institutional solution
Project scope
The problem (dilemmas)
Why study the Republic of
Letters